I feel people are being unnecessarily hyperbolic and overdramatic when they make statements saying such ideas sound like a brawler or fighting game. If you're going to have combat you may as well make sure it's as top notch as possible. You can't just repeat the same fighting formula from the Team Silent games out of fear of change. That's adding nothing. Nothing about the ideas I listed is overcomplicated. They're very simple ideas. With the right effort and polish put forward they have to the potential to make for a great combat system while keeping Silent Hill intact.

It's a video game above all else so story and presentation should overshadow all other aspects of game design. They should all be treated equally. It's not as if there haven't been fans who expressed similar frustration with the combat in the Team Silent games either. The combat in the old games wasn't always as objectively immersion inducing as many people's nostalgia seem to make it out to be.

It's a video game, so it's about game design first. Everything else should be designed to mesh with game design to form a more cohesive whole. Otherwise, it rolls like an egg and everyone notices. They might not be able to put their finger on it why, exactly, it's so, but they know.

And who, pray tell, is suggesting sticking with the combat system of the prior games or that it was better that way and shouldn't change? It certainly couldn't have been me, as I suggested that the developers of SH1 and 2 couldn't come up with a real solution to the combat problem, and clunky simplicity was the best they could come up with. To me, that doesn't smack of triumph.

The reason I oppose the paradigm you suggest isn't because "change is bad," but because you're advocating change in a direction that doesn't help Silent Hill's core aims one single, solitary bit. Good combat to a game with the goals of Silent Hill is an appendix, one that can potentially swell, burst, and poison the whole product.

Now there's a pretty piece of hyperbole. Dig it?

The sense of dread in a Souls game or a latter-day Resident Evil comes from not knowing what's around the corner or being beaten by a strong enemy. These are things that mesh well with the combat systems of these games. The fear in Silent Hill has always been something else, an itch you can't scratch, which is at best unrelated to combat and, at worst, detracted from by combat (y'know, scratching the itch).

The fear in Silent Hill has always been something else, an itch you can't scratch, which is at best unrelated to combat and, at worst, detracted from by combat

Again, this is subjective. You may not experience tension or fear from fighting monsters, but that doesn't other people haven't. The combat may not enhance Silent Hill's atmosphere or story telling, but it can make the game more playable and potentially provide more challenge to the player if it's nurtured right. And the right amount of challenge can help provide a sense of fear just as much as spooky sound effects or outlandish environmental designs.

Silent Hill isn't just about presentation factor and story telling. It's an amalgamation of many factors, big and small, that make it what it is. Silent Hill's core, as you say it, isn't really an established idea. You should know already that Silent Hill's core or what it's all about has been a subject of debate for over a decade now.

The sense of dread in a Souls game or a latter-day Resident Evil comes from not knowing what's around the corner or being beaten by a strong enemy. These are things that mesh well with the combat systems of these games. The fear in Silent Hill has always been something else, an itch you can't scratch, which is at best unrelated to combat and, at worst, detracted from by combat (y'know, scratching the itch).

I would say most of the fear from Silent Hill games comes from atmosphere. But, that doesn't mean it couldn't come from other sources as well to compliment that. I think there's a lot of things the developers of Silent Hill could learn from Dark Souls to make the game scarier. Dark Souls is one of the absolute best games at creating tension, at can sometimes be a pretty scary game when it decides to go for a scary atmosphere, like Blighttown or the Tower of Latria from Demons Souls. Most of that tension comes from the fact that there will be consequences for your actions and for making mistakes. That's something I'd love to see more of in a Silent Hill game, and combining that natural tension with an intense atmosphere is the key to making a horror games that are scary again.

Y'know, there's a level to which this argument is just stonewalling, you know that, right? Of course there's a core to Silent Hill. If there wasn't, we could substitute any game for it and feel equally satisfied. Like, say, Resident Evil 6. It's a shame that nobody seems to be able to make that jump, isn't it?

Okay, fine, I can only argue from my own subjective experience. Let me tell you what Silent Hill is to me. Underneath the bridge control room, there's a maintenance room that I'm irrationally scared of. There are no enemies and no strange sights, only a track of music and a rock drill. Even though it's probably the safest room in the whole game, I'll not stay there more than five or ten seconds. It's irrational, I understand that it's irrational, but I still refuse to be in that room any longer than it takes to confirm it's still there and still super effective, even after ten years.

That's Silent Hill. The combat engine is incidental to that.

Certainly, whatever combat engine (or free-running engine, or however the developer wishes to pursue this) should run smoothly and efficiently. It should be easy to understand and easy to use. It should work. I think we're all on the same page, here.

However, combat demanding too much attention naturally turns focus to the combat. If I'm testing and memorizing whether the flesh monster is weak to blunt damage, that's time I'm spending analyzing the monster instead of being freaked out by it. By analyzing and compiling knowledge, the unknown becomes a known and I -- in my subjective experiences, as you're so wont to point out -- am no longer frightened by it. The only thing I'm scared of is that it could kill me.

Yes, that's a different kind of tension, a kind of fear that would make Silent Hill no different from Pac-Man. Is that really what you want?

I have to agree with you Kenji. I'm not going to say absolutely nothing should be done with the combat, but it should never become a focus. A good horror game doesn't focus on it's combat, atleast i'v never played a game that was scary in any way that had an emphasis on it.

_________________WARNING: Some Parts of Reality May Seem Violent or Cruel.

I also agree with that. Generally I think a horror game is best served by keeping a combat system simple. It's not like it can't be improved, but while improving it you have to think about how to keep it simple and easy to understand. Bogging it down with too many details shifts the nature of the game away from horror. The player should be left free to feel the atmosphere of the game, and should not be thinking "I need to learn how to use my character."

You can have improved combat without making it the forefront of the game. Not sure why that is such a common misconception. None of the ideas I've proposed are anything immensely complicated that would drastically deter from simple gameplay experience. Keeping combat simple and the same has the potential to detract more from a horror experience than innovating it. If you keep limiting players to the same abilities then there's the chance of less tension and fear. Because you'll already know what you are and aren't capable of doing. So changing things up is the better thing to do. Like you two said, it's dependent upon how the approach is taken. Silent Hill has already enough entries with stick dry mechanics as the Team Silent games have shown. We need to move away from that into more ambitious territory.

Keeping combat simple and the same has the potential to detract more from a horror experience than innovating it.

Complexity â‰ Innovation.

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

If you keep limiting players to the same abilities then there's the chance of less tension and fear.

No, I think the opposite is true. Complex combat mechanics are a distraction from what is supposed to be the main appeal of the game, the atmosphere.

When you talk about "improving" combat mechanics, what you should really be focusing on is helping them serve the overall horror experience. Adding more complexity to the combat doesn't necessarily do that and can easily detract from the experience, unless you do it the right way.

Combos add nothing but button mashing and just detract from the experience. If you're gonna add something, how about a greater variety of weapons. Each weapon could handle very simply (two attacks, a quick attack and a strong attack just like the old games) but the large variety of weapons will add depth to the game. So you'd have more depth without sacrificing simplicity. That's an approach I think might work.

No, I think the opposite is true. Complex combat mechanics are a distraction from what is supposed to be the main appeal of the game, the atmosphere.

Atmosphere is subjectivity. You can't let gameplay mechanics be hindered by something like that. What is atmospheric or immersion breaking for one person doesn't speak for everybody else. Keeping things simple to avoid that is lazy gameplay design and playing things too safe which is detrimental to Silent Hill anyway.

Quote:

When you talk about "improving" combat mechanics, what you should really be focusing on is helping them serve the overall horror experience. Adding more complexity to the combat doesn't necessarily do that and can easily detract from the experience, unless you do it the right way.

Agreeable.

Quote:

Combos add nothing but button mashing and just detract from the experience.

Why does it matter whether the combos are button mashing or not. You were saying about how too much complexity can hurt atmosphere but this post seems contradictory to what you said earlier. The combos in Homecoming, while a bit more fleshed out than those in earlier games, are not that complicated. It's not as if people likely haven't button mashed before when using firearms. It seems like a mundane thing to complain about. We're not talking about adding Street Fighter X Tekken ultra combos here.

Quote:

If you're gonna add something, how about a greater variety of weapons. Each weapon could handle very simply (two attacks, a quick attack and a strong attack just like the old games) but the large variety of weapons will add depth to the game. So you'd have more depth without sacrificing simplicity. That's an approach I think might work.

That's actually decreasing depth by limiting the amount of abilities you'd be able to perform with the weapons. Greater variety of weapons is certainly a sound idea, but it's almost pointless if you're not going to bother providing more depth with them.

Silent Hill has stuck with bare basic weapon abilities for long enough. It's hardly a fresh approach anymore. We should be looking past that. In fact, we should for more than just enhanced weapon abilities into other things like stealth as one mentioned. Siren is a good example of that and it would be a change from your typical monster encounter.

Why does it matter whether the combos are button mashing or not. You were saying about how too much complexity can hurt atmosphere but this post seems contradictory to what you said earlier. The combos in Homecoming, while a bit more fleshed out than those in earlier games, are not that complicated.

Let me explain. Right now, I'm arguing against the idea of adding a *good* combo system, one that has depth. I'm saying that even if it's done well, it will change the tone of the game and distract from what the game's supposed to be about, the atmosphere.

Homecoming didn't even have a *good* combo system, it had a *bad* one. Each weapon had basically one useful combo, that's it. So the combo system in that case added no depth whatsoever. In effect, Homecoming's system is *exactly as simple* as the older ones from previous games, the only difference is that there is more button mashing required because monsters have more health.

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

That's actually decreasing depth by limiting the amount of abilities you'd be able to perform with the weapons. Greater variety of weapons is certainly a sound idea, but it's almost pointless if you're not going to bother providing more depth with them.

No, I think you're wrong on several levels. First, not everyone wants "depth" out of a combat system. Take Bayonetta... there are hundreds of different combos you can do, but many people will just find one or two combos and spam them repeatedly. Why? Because it's hard to remember all of those moves and to be able to use them as the situation calls for it. It's much easier to just pick a few moves and use them over and over. This is just the way some people play games, whether you like it or not.

Second, there can still be depth even when the moveset is limited. Take Dark Souls, each weapon only has two main moves, a light attack and a heavy attack. Now, there are some utility moves like a kick, a charging attack and a rolling attack, but most people just use the light attack / heavy attack for just about everything. The game still has a lot of depth for many reasons:

1. Game physics. You can feel the "weight" of the attacks.2. Varied movesets. There are hundreds of different weapons which all have different playstyles.3. Monster variety. The monsters have lots of different attacks and ways to surprise the player.

These are all ways to add depth to a combat system, and things that I think you could possibly do with a Silent Hill game without robbing it of it's atmosphere. Especially the idea of weapon variety, there's just no good reason not to do it. Adding more weapons is a perfect way to add depth because you make that depth optional. If a player wants, they can just pick a weapon they like and fight through the whole game like that (and some players *will* want to, because some don't like complex combat systems.) On the other hand, a player looking for depth will find it when they experiment with using all the different weapons. It's a win win.

More monster variety would also be a great way to improve Silent Hill's combat system. Making monsters be more unpredictable would never be a bad thing for the game's atmosphere, it certainly give you good reasons to actually fear them. It also adds depth.

So there's lots of different ways to add more depth to the combat system without adding combos. Combos simply do not fit this type of game. The idea that adding them is "innovative" to me shows a profound misunderstanding of what horror games are all about. And if you disagree, well just keep in mind that Climax and Vatra are on my side, because they didn't exactly take Homecoming's combat system and run with it.

Let me explain. Right now, I'm arguing against the idea of adding a *good* combo system, one that has depth. I'm saying that even if it's done well, it will change the tone of the game and distract from what the game's supposed to be about, the atmosphere.

I already understood that part just fine. But what I had already explained to you earlier is that atmosphere is not a concept. It's something that differs from person to person. With infinite thinking potential you can make anything out in the games to seem atmospheric or lacking in atmosphere. You'll hear all kinds of stories throughout the fanbase of what they think is immersion. You cannot chain down the more palpable aspects of the series such as combat to something like that. Even if the series followed your examples, I guarantee fans would still be finding things to complain about that ruin immersion. You can't be scared to evolve gameplay in certain ways for fear of ruining immersion or the series will never make any progress. It's an idea that has the potential to encourage lazy gameplay design. And gameplay is just as important to the games as story or atmosphere.

Quote:

Homecoming didn't even have a *good* combo system, it had a *bad* one. Each weapon had basically one useful combo, that's it. So the combo system in that case added no depth whatsoever. In effect, Homecoming's system is *exactly as simple* as the older ones from previous games, the only difference is that there is more button mashing required because monsters have more health.

I get that you didn't like it, but I think your dislike of the combat is leading you to overgeneralize it. Homecoming certainly didn't have just one useful combo so long as you learn how to handle your weapons and not try to fight with all of them as if you're still using the knife. The strong and weak attacks combined with the new firearm aiming system and dodges already added more variety to anything the older games offered. Each weapon actually handled differently too so you had to adjust your strategy according to whatever you were armed with.

Now can Homecoming do better than what it offered? Absolutely. It had great ideas but it still wasn't perfect.

Quote:

No, I think you're wrong on several levels. First, not everyone wants "depth" out of a combat system.

That seems like a silly mindset. If you're going to have combat in the game you may as well flesh it out as much as possible.

Quote:

Take Bayonetta... there are hundreds of different combos you can do, but many people will just find one or two combos and spam them repeatedly. Why? Because it's hard to remember all of those moves and to be able to use them as the situation calls for it. It's much easier to just pick a few moves and use them over and over. This is just the way some people play games, whether you like it or not.

That's a beside the point comparison because nothing I'm suggesting is even close to Bayonetta style gameplay anyway. You're just being unnecessarily hyperbolic in your concern about an idea you don't like. I'm not talking about adding extremely long combos, chaining them or anything like that. I'm just saying add a few upgrades to the fighting mechanics.

Quote:

Second, there can still be depth even when the moveset is limited. Take Dark Souls, each weapon only has two main moves, a light attack and a heavy attack. Now, there are some utility moves like a kick, a charging attack and a rolling attack, but most people just use the light attack / heavy attack for just about everything. The game still has a lot of depth for many reasons:

1. Game physics. You can feel the "weight" of the attacks.2. Varied movesets. There are hundreds of different weapons which all have different playstyles.3. Monster variety. The monsters have lots of different attacks and ways to surprise the player.

And those are all great ideas that can add a lot if they're given careful thought. But for strange reason you seem to be particularly negative about the idea of combos which doesn't make sense as the older games had them anyway. It's not the big deal you're making it out to be. Homecoming's combos were fine. I don't see a point in dropping them out of some misplaced fear of immersion. Just try to flesh them out with ideas like the ones you suggested. Adding different move sets to weapons. You can still use some combos with the smaller weapons like pipes or crowbars while larger ones like a pickaxe have limited but powerful attacks you can perform. That's where physics really come into play and bring strategy to the gameplay. Make it so that no two weapons feel the same.

Quote:

More monster variety would also be a great way to improve Silent Hill's combat system. Making monsters be more unpredictable would never be a bad thing for the game's atmosphere, it certainly give you good reasons to actually fear them. It also adds depth.

Agreeable. This has been a big problem with the games for years now.

Quote:

So there's lots of different ways to add more depth to the combat system without adding combos. Combos simply do not fit this type of game. The idea that adding them is "innovative" to me shows a profound misunderstanding of what horror games are all about.

Now you're being pointlessly exaggerative again. I had already said not too long ago that the older games already basic combos and we're not talking about Street Fighter style combos so relax. I never made them out to be this large, groundbreaking innovation in the series to start with. All I was saying was that the fighting mechanics in Homecoming objectively had more variety than the old games because they do. There are many abilities in that game that the others do not have.

Quote:

And if you disagree, well just keep in mind that Climax and Vatra are on my side, because they didn't exactly take Homecoming's combat system and run with it.

That's a pretty silly thing to say considering that each of their games ran through many different ideas with the fighting, and that's what we should be doing. If you keep the combat too familiar you run the risk of it becoming too stale and losing the chance of it being tense anyway. Team Silent themselves seemed to catch onto this judging from their work on SH3 & 4.

You can't be scared to evolve gameplay in certain ways for fear of ruining immersion

Stop right there. You were right that concepts like "atmosphere" and "immersion" are subjective. Your mistake is saying "evolve gameplay" as if it's an objective fact... sorry, that's wrong. In truth, what you consider an evolution of gameplay is also entirely subjective. In this case, the word "evolution" is just a fancy word for "improvement." Whether these changes improve the game is based on personal preferences; hence, subjective.

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

Homecoming certainly didn't have just one useful combo so long as you learn how to handle your weapons and not try to fight with all of them as if you're still using the knife.

What does "handling your weapons" have anything to do with it? You are wrong. Each weapon has exactly one useful combo: A, A, X. That's it. (The knife arguably has two if you count A, A, X and A, A, A, X, but there's usually no reason not to use the full knife combo.) If you disagree, then list for me the other combos I'm missing.

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

The strong and weak attacks combined with the new firearm aiming system and dodges already added more variety to anything the older games offered.

No, I disagree. Weak and strong attacks are useless by themselves. The most effective way to do damage in Homecoming is undeniably to spam combos... in fact, the developers gave enemies a ton of health because they expect you to do exactly that. So that's really the only choice you have. The only other viable choice in battle is charged strikes, but that's only if you have enough time to get one off which won't happen often.

So let's count: so far, that's two viable choices per weapon. 1 combo, and 1 charged strike. The past Silent Hills also usually had 2 attacks per melee weapon. As you can see, no variety has been added. In fact, the older games tend to have more variety in combat because at least you are free to mix up your two moves. In Homecoming, you are generally limited to spamming your one dial-a-combo over and over. Because of this, and because enemies have way too much health, combat feels more repetitive in Homecoming than any other Silent Hill game. It's always: spam combo - dodge - spam combo - dodge, repeat, or in the case of the knife and many enemies: spam combo - spam combo - spam combo, infinity.

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

Each weapon actually handled differently too so you had to adjust your strategy according to whatever you were armed with.

That's true of the older games as well, and since Homecoming's weapons are unbalanced (and there's not a stunning variety of weapons anyway) there is no improvement in this department. Actually, I don't think the weapons in Homecoming feel all that different from each other. I think the dial-a-combo approach tends to make all the weapons feel pretty much the same. After all, what difference does it really make when you just keep pressing A, A, X? It's not like you time button presses differently with other weapons.

As for the dodge, I don't particularly think it's a very good addition. In terms of innovation, it's a lateral move at best. Honestly, I prefer the block button from Silent Hill 3, it serves essentially the same function but with more flexibility and less emphasis on reflexes. Manual aiming is fine, but personally I prefer automatic aiming for a variety of reasons which I'll get into later, if you want. (But let's not get sidetracked.)

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

That's a beside the point comparison because nothing I'm suggesting is even close to Bayonetta style gameplay anyway.

But why don't you suggest it? You seem to think that adding combos is automatically an "evolution." If that's true, why wouldn't you want to raise it up to Bayonetta levels?

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

And those are all great ideas that can add a lot if they're given careful thought. But for strange reason you seem to be particularly negative about the idea of combos which doesn't make sense as the older games had them anyway. It's not the big deal you're making it out to be. Homecoming's combos were fine. I don't see a point in dropping them out of some misplaced fear of immersion.

Well, thanks for saying they are great ideas. Let me see if I can explain why I'm so negative about combos in particular. In my view, the combo mechanic has advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:-Makes the combat flashier and more exciting to watch.-Adds more depth to a combat system.-Makes battles feel more fast paced, and more exciting.

Disadvantages:-The player is essentially forced to do combos to be successful.-The battle system's depth is only realized if the player practices a lot and memorizes all of combos.-A higher degree of focus is required which will detract from the game's other aspects.

Off the top of my head, I think this basically sums it up, if you disagree with any of these then tell me why. Just looking at this analysis should explain why I think combos are a phenomenally bad idea for a horror game. The advantages don't really work for this type of game. "Flashy" combat doesn't really serve the goal of horror games, it's better for action and fighting games. The excitement from a faster paced game is also not necessarily desired, especially as slower paced, more deliberate combat can sometimes produce it's own kind of tension (like Dark Souls.) And while the system might have added depth, that depth will only be realized if the player focuses a lot of the combat system and practices a lot. OF COURSE that will distract from the game's other aspects like story and atmosphere. The negatives are hugely harmful to what successful horror games tend to strive for.

Also notice that Homecoming's combat system has almost none of the advantages I listed. Combat is repetitive and boring to watch, and a severe lack of combos means there is no depth whatsoever. So literally, the only thing Homecoming's combo system added was to make battle feel faster paced. That is NOT evolution, nor innovation.

Again, I just want to stress a couple of points: 1. more complexity is not always better, some people prefer simpler combat systems, this is a valid preference. 2. even if more depth is desired, combos are the worst possible way to add it to a horror game's combat system.

It wasn't a bad idea, but spamming A, A, X can pretty much win you the game.. once I figured that out, the combat didn't really feel as special as the first time I played through.

Well, yeah. I mean, that's literally the *only* useful combo with the axe. So what else would you do? That was one of the points I was trying to make, combos don't add any variety or depth to combat when you have to spam the same combo over and over. They literally add nothing to the game except button mashing. Wow, what innovation!

Though if you want a weapon you can spam it's combo and get through the game easily, I wouldn't suggest the fireaxe, I'd suggest the knife. The knife makes most encounters trivial, it practically breaks the game. Try it sometime.

Sorry, I know it's been a year, ha... but that's what I was getting at. AAX combo + knife is really all you need. Unstoppable I liked the gameplay so much more before this realization!

_________________Another frequency perpetuated into context, trapped in the eternal paradox.jwrn.bandcamp.comwww.soundcloud.com/jonas-nicholsonbakedpotatoesreggae.com

Oh, definitely. The combat is one of the best aspects of the game because there was actually a feeling of urgency and challenge to it instead of just running up and bashing on a piece of meat with a stick. The weapons felt balanced and had a sense of weight to them as if you weren't simply swinging a stick. Blows and dodges have to be timed accordingly so you can't button mash your way through the game. And I like how ammo was actually scarce and you couldn't simply gun down everything in your path and call it a day like SH1-3 and the RE4-6 games do.

Unfortunately, most SH fans don't really care about the gameplay and just come for the story and atmosphere rather than the whole experience. I have no problem with it inherantly. But it gets to the point where many SH fans want the gameplay mechanics dumbed to make progressing through to get to the storyline more accessible to them, that's when I have a problem with it. Too many fans who want a glorified visual novel rather than a video game. You can never add any new ideas to the formula without somebody whining about immersion.

You're posting in this thread again as if it's new, after dropping out of the discussion with me for a year... really?

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

Blows and dodges have to be timed accordingly so you can't button mash your way through the game.

Anyway, that's totally wrong. You can button mash your way through 90% of the game. The knife is very overpowered, and you can simply mash the same combo over and over to easily destroy most monsters. There's only a few normal enemies you actually need to use the dodge button for at all.

Will you calm down? I'm not exactly going to remember every single thread I post in especially if it was over a year ago.

And you do realize you don't have to use the knife, right? I've tried that method before and I can see how some people might say this particularly with the weaker enemies. But with the stronger enemies, it's not that simple.

Besides, I like that the knife is useful for a change whereas in earlier games it was practically useless. Even so, I never use it because it's not as fun as the other weapons.

And you do realize you don't have to use the knife, right? I've tried that method before and I can see how some people might say this particularly with the weaker enemies. But with the stronger enemies, it's not that simple.

The only enemies the knife doesn't work well on are smogs and needlers, and smogs are pretty easily beaten with firearms. Everything else you can spam the knife combo and it'll work. It works especially well on the most common enemies: dogs, nurses, schisms, and humans.

stonecoldsteveurkel wrote:

Besides, I like that the knife is useful for a change whereas in earlier games it was practically useless. Even so, I never use it because it's not as fun as the other weapons.

Okay. But you can't claim that the weapons in Homecoming are balanced, because it's one of the most imbalanced games in the series; and you can't claim that button mashing doesn't work in Homecoming, because you can button mash your way through 90% of the enemies.

The only enemies the knife doesn't work well on are smogs and needlers

I actually found that the knife works quite well on needlers too! I just have to make sure I dodge and approach from the right angle. On my first playthrough I used longer melee weapons on them more, and that was a nightmare! Much better with the knife.I shoot smogs and siams, usually, and pretty much use the knife on everything else. (Quite a change from my usual preferred wielding of a pipe in SH games.)

Smogs, Siams, Needlers, and sometimes Schisms are what I shoot. None of these enemies are very abundant and you have a really low cap on the ammo you can carry, so it's basically wisest to just shoot the enemies I named off anyway to save time and irritation. The knife owns everything else, and the other weapons feel too sluggish to be of much use outside some one on one fights. I know it's possible to be good with some of the other weapons, but it doesn't change the fact that the other weapons feel more clunky and are more irritating anyway due to the game having an irritating and repetitious battle system to begin with.

Oh, and by "irritating" I don't mean hard. The game is far from hard if you just watch the enemies easily recognized movement patterns to dodge attacks. Any difficulty the game has is artificial, which makes many moments feel cheap. Plus enemies take way too long to kill, which really drags the game on with as many enemies you run into at times (thank god for laser gun unlock.)

_________________WARNING: Some Parts of Reality May Seem Violent or Cruel.